Remembrance (episode)
At the end of the 24th century, and fourteen years after his retirement from Starfleet, Jean-Luc Picard is living a quiet life on his vineyard, Chateau Picard. When he is sought out by a mysterious young woman, Dahj, in need of his help, he soon realizes she may have personal connections to his own past. Summary Prologue Data and Jean-Luc Picard are playing poker in Ten Forward aboard the . They discuss Data's ability to bluff. Data raises the bet to "fifty," everything Picard has. Picard makes tea to stall; he doesn't want the game to end. Picard goes "all in." Data lays down five Queens of Hearts, and Picard looks outside the window to see Mars, which begins weathering an attack by rogue synthetics ( ). He gasps, and wakes up from this dream at his vineyard, Chateau Picard. Meanwhile, in Greater Boston, Dahj and her Xahean boyfriend are sharing a romantic evening. She tells him that she has been accepted for a fellowship in Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Consciousness at the Daystrom Institute. He jokingly criticizes her replicator options. Just then, a squad of masked men transport into the room. One throws a knife, killing Dahj's boyfriend. The men speak an alien language before switching to English. They place a bag over Dahj's head to render her unconscious, but she begins fighting back, incapacitating the squad. She leans over the body of her boyfriend to mourn, and has a vision of the face of Jean-Luc Picard. Act One At Chateau Picard, Jean-Luc and his dog, walk through the fields. Picard talks to the dog in French. He returns to the house, where he talks with Laris and Zhaban, two Romulans who work as his housekeepers. Picard talks of his dreams and how he is feeling melancholy. As Zhaban makes breakfast, Picard laments his agreement to be interviewed by the Federation News Network. He orders his trademark Earl Grey tea, but decaf this time. He dresses in a jacket and tie as the news crew sets up in his living room. He's nervous, making sure from Zhaban that the interview will not address Picard's separation from Starfleet. Laris tells him not to forget who he is and what he did, saying "we have not." Zhaban tells him to "be the captain they remember." The FNN interview begins with a capsule biography of Picard. The interviewer asks him about the supernova that destroyed Romulus in 2387. The interviewer grows combative, asking him the very question that Picard dreaded; why he left Starfleet. He left the to command a rescue armada of ten thousand warp-capable ferries to Romulus after the supernova and relocate nine hundred million Romulans. He compares it to the evacuation at Dunkirk during World War II. Picard says that the Federation abandoned its duty to save millions of lives, regardless of whether or not they were Romulan. Then the unimaginable happened; the rescue armada was wiped out by a group of rogue synthetics who attacked the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, killing 92,143 residents and igniting the stratosphere. The intention of the attack remains unknown, and synthetic lifeforms were banned as a result of the attack. Picard believes this ban is a mistake. The interviewer brings up Lieutenant Commander Data, and asks if Picard ever lost faith in him. "Never", replies Picard. She asks what he did lose faith in, why he resigned from Starfleet. Picard says, "Because it was no longer Starfleet! We withdrew. The galaxy was mourning, burying its dead, and Starfleet slunk from its duties. The decision to call off the rescue and to abandon those people we had sworn to save was not just dishonorable, it was downright criminal! And I was not prepared to stand by and be a spectator!" He accuses the interviewer of being a stranger to history and to war, and ends the interview. Dahj watches the interview from a rainy street corner. She recognizes the man from her vision. Act Two Back at Chateau Picard, Picard sits on a porch with his dog, Number One, drinking wine and quoting Shakespeare; "No legacy is so rich as honesty," from All's Well That Ends Well. Number One begins barking; Dahj has arrived. Picard stands to look at her, and asks what she wants. She says she saw the interview, and asks if he knows her. He's not sure. She tells him of the attack in her apartment and her killing of the assailants. She just knew how to fight them; "it was like lightning hitting the ground." Picard holds her hands and tries to calm her. She tells him she keeps seeing his face. "Everything inside of me says that I'm safe with you," she tells him. That evening, Laris and Zhaban heal her wound from the fight and offer her a blanket. Picard offers her Earl Grey tea and sits with her on an outdoor deck, and he comments on her necklace. She asks him if he'd ever been a stranger to himself, and he replies, "Many, many times." He returns her necklace and asks her name. She knows his name somehow, from an "older, deeper" place. He agrees, but doesn't know why. He tells her she isn't crazy and that she isn't dangerous (Number One would have let him know). He offers her a room, and Laris takes her. Before Dahj goes, she thanks Picard. He touches her necklace, left on the table. In the morning, he has another dream. In the dream, Picard awakens, opens his window, and sees Data painting a picture in the vineyard. Picard, now in a TNG-era uniform, walks up to Data, similarly dressed. Data asks Picard to finish the painting, but Picard doesn't know how. It's a painting of a faceless woman standing at a shore. Data tells Picard that it is not true that Picard cannot finish the painting, and as Picard reaches for the brush, he is awakened by a clock. He has been asleep at his desk. He stands up to look at a similar painting on his wall. Laris enters, announcing that Dahj is gone. Picard says he has somewhere to go, and to contact him if Dahj returns. He travels to San Francisco to the Starfleet Archives. His belongings have been locked in stasis at the quantum archives. After bantering with a hologram, Index, and walks into a facility containing memoribilia of his Starfleet career, ranging from a model of the USS Stargazer to the Captain Picard Day banner. He searches for an item, which beams into the facility. He opens it; it is the painting from his dream, this time with Dahj's face on the woman at the shore.The hologram Index informs him that the painting is one of two given to him by Data, and that the title of this one is "Daughter." Act Three In Paris, Dahj is on the run. She opens up a holographic communicator device to contact her mother and tell her about the attack. Her mother is concerned, and tells her to go back to Picard. Dahj realizes that she hadn't told her mother about Picard, and is confused by how her mother knows. The face of her mother tells her to focus, and Dahj conducts a search to find Picard at the archives. Picard is walking out of the building when Dahj appears. He's stunned to see her, and glad she is safe. She tells him she can hear conversations a block away, and worries she has schizophrenia. Picard tells her she is not, nor is she a "freak;" she might be very special. He tells her about Data, but not like those who attacked Mars. He insinuates that this is a common prejudice; Data was a decorated Starfleet officer who sacrificed his life for Picard over two decades ago. He was an artist, and painted a picture of her thirty years ago. She says that's impossible. Picard tells her the title of the painting, "Daughter," and relates it to her situation; he suggests the attack on Dahj was a "wake-up call," a "positronic alarm bell" that activated her power as an android. She tells of her childhood in Seattle, where her father, a xenobotanist, developed a new hybrid of flower. He tells her to look inside, deeply and honestly, and see that she might be something lovingly and deliberately created, like the flower. If she is who he thinks she is, she is dear to him. He tells her that they will go to the Daystrom Institute in Okanawa, Japan to see if she is indeed related to Data. She flinches, and begins running, pulling Picard behind her. Someone is after them. Picard, out of breath, follows her up the stairs to a rooftop, where men similar to the group of assassins that killed her boyfriend and attacked her appear. She begins fighting them, using advanced hand-to-hand combat skills, dodging disruptor blasts, and leaping long distances. She smashes the mask of one of the men, who is revealed to be Romulan. One spits an acid at her, disintegrating his gun. This causes an explosion that envelops Dahj and blows Picard back some distance. Act Four Flashes of his dreams and events of the day appear as Picard awakens at home, tended by Laris and Zhaban. Picard tells them that Dahj is dead, and they are shocked. The police told them he was found alone on the roof. They wonder if she has access to a cloaking device. Picard muses that she was a refugee, like Laris, like Zhaban, and like himself. He laments his life in hiding,"nursing his offended dignity, writing books of history people prefer to forget." He declares, "I haven't been living; I've been waiting to die." He stands up with purpose. At the Daystrom Institute, he meets with Doctor Agnes Jurati. He asks her if it is possible to make a sentient android out of flesh and blood, and she laughs. She realizes he is serious, and says it is impossible, a thousand years away. He tells her he had tea with one. They walk to the remains of the Division of Advanced Synthetic Research, now a "ghost town" since the ban on synthetic life form research and production. Now they do only theoretical research. Jurati opens a drawer containing a dissembled B-4. B-4 turned out to be "not much like Data at all," and most of Data's positronic network was lost after it was transferred to B-4 ( ). Nobody had since been able to redevelop the science to create a Soong-type android. She tells Picard she was recruited by Bruce Maddox to work on developing such technology, but after the ban, Maddox disappeared. Jurati tells him that any new android, even one of flesh and blood, would need to be created out of Data's neural net, now lost. He holds up Dahj's necklace, and she is stunned. She sits, and tells him the necklace holds a symbol for "Fractal Neuronic Cloning," a radical idea of Maddox's that would have allowed Data's memories to be cloned to a degree from a single positronic neuron. Picard declares Dahj to be Data's daughter, created by Maddox and modeled after the face in the painting. Jurati says it would be possible to create a female android from Data's positronic neuron, using the plural "they." Picard asks, "twins?" Jurati concurs. "So there's another one..." Picard muses. A Romulan ship flies into a dock at the Romulan Reclamation Site. Narek walks on a catwalk over to a "Doctor Asher." She looks exactly like Dahj. He introduces himself, and she introduces herself as Soji. He compliments her necklace, identical to the one in Picard's possession. Narek talks about his brother (not a twin), deceased unexpectedly as of last year. She offers to listen to Narek's "sad story," and the camera begins to pull out. It is revealed that the Romulan Reclamation Site is inside the wreckage of a Borg cube. Memorable quotes "See... and raise." "Hm... Call." : - Picard and Data, first spoken lines of the series Log entries Background information Cast and characters * Patrick Stewart reprises his role as Jean-Luc Picard. He was last seen in . * Brent Spiner reprises his role as Data. He previously voiced the role in . Continuity * This is the second series premiere after in which Picard and Data have the first spoken lines of dialogue. * This is the first mention of Bruce Maddox since . * This is the first on-screen appearance of the Daystrom Institute, and the first episode to establish that its location on Earth is in Okinawa, Japan. * The opening lines serve as a continuation of the final dialogue from . * This series is the first Star Trek to take place in the Prime Universe after the Destruction of Romulus in 2387, and confirms that the Prime Universe survived and continues after Spock and Nero traveled back in time and created the alternate reality. Links and references Starring * Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard * Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati * Isa Briones as Dahj and Soji Asher ;And * Harry Treadaway as Narek Special guest star * Brent Spiner as Data Guest starring * Orla Brady as Laris * David Carzell as Dahj's Boyfriend * Merrin Dungey as Interviewer * Jamie McShane as Zhaban * Sumalee Montano as Dahj's Mother Co-starring * Maya Eshet as * Douglas Tait as a Tellarite Uncredited co-stars * De Niro as References aircar; Attack on Mars; B-4; Chateau Picard; Class C shuttlecraft; Daystrom Institute; Division of Advanced Synthetic Research; Dunkirk; ; female; France; Golden Gate Bridge; Greater Boston; hovercar; Mars; military tactician; Okinawa; Romulan sun; Seattle; Starfleet Archive Museum; synth; synth ship; Tellarite; Trill; Worf; Xahean Starfleet Archive Museum references 2321; 2327; 2330; 2333; 2340; 2349; 2350; 2351; 2355; 2360; 2380; 2386; academy advisor; academy graduate plaque; Alpha Quadrant; Andoria; Andorian award; Bajoran award; Betazoid Loyalties award; cadet; Calypso; Captain Picard Day; Class of 2327; Command and Control; Crystal Planet award; degree; Dignified Person award; ; Galaxy of Planets and Suns Fundraiser; graduate; Grankite Order of Tactics; Hall of Honor; Honorary Olympian; Humanitarian Award of Federation Planets; kilometer per second; Latin; Legion of Honor; ; Paris; Picard Maneuver; Planetary Humanitarian Award; professor emeritus; ; USS Reliant Service Award; Rising Phoenix; Silver Medal in Diplomacy; ; Starfleet Academy; Starfleet Academy Games; Starfleet Command; ; Vulcan award; work ethic External link * |next= }} Category:PIC episodes